


You Know What I Mean (Don't You Know)

by Theoroark



Series: Feeling Good [9]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Dysfunctional Platonic Relationships, F/F, Families of Choice, Gen, Team Talon (Overwatch), Team as Family, Thinly veiled metaphors for recovery and the difficulty of not enabling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 06:07:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12929136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theoroark/pseuds/Theoroark
Summary: Gabe was sitting there, waiting for her, when she popped down from the vent into the control booth in the departure hangar. He smiled thinly at her and held out a glass.“Have a drink with me, Sombra.”-Sombra's escape from Talon.





	You Know What I Mean (Don't You Know)

Gabe was sitting there, waiting for her, when she popped down from the vent into the control booth in the departure hangar. He smiled thinly at her and held out a glass.

 

“Have a drink with me, Sombra.”

 

Sombra leaned up against the doorframe, slipping a translocator beacon past it as she watched him. His gaze did not shift. But she had learned by now that she was not a particularly good judge of what he did and did not see. She pushed off the wall and walked past his outstretched hand, to the metal swivel chair at the terminal next to his.

 

“What’s the plan, Gabe?” she asked. She sat down and kicked the chair over to him. She knocked into him, sending him rolling a bit, spilling some of whatever he was holding. He set it down on the keyboard.

 

“I’m trying to help you here, Sombra,” he said. He was not wearing his mask, and Sombra could see he had not eaten in a while– patches of bone and muscle were showing, and the skin that was present seemed to waver if you looked at it too long. His gloves hung loose on his fingers as the tapped them against the counter.

 

“You haven’t thought this through,” he said. “As usual. Talon won’t let assets like you and Widow just disappear. Even if you do manage to meet up with her, your luck can’t last forever. It’s pointless. Tell Widow you made a mistake and to come back, and I’ll see what I can do for you two.”

 

He pushed the glass towards her and she sighed.

 

“We’ve been over this before,” she said wearily. “I have a plan.” He raised an eyebrow and she rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Look, Gabe. I don’t know what you thought we were up to. But as long as Talon leaves us alone, I’m not going to do a thing to affect all your little schemes. Widow just wants out, and I’ll be honest, I’m getting tired of all this bullshit too.”

 

“Out,” Gabe repeated. For a man whose facial features were practically crumbling before her eyes, he emoted skepticism impressively well. “So… what. Two internationally wanted terrorists are just going to hole up and play house, for the rest of their lives?”

 

Sombra looked down at her lap, even though it was useless for hiding the flush across her face. “There are worse things in life.”

 

“Yes, but– Sombra.” He rubbed his face. “You’re not getting it.”

 

“I am, okay?” she snapped. “You think Widow and I are these two stupid brats who are too horny to know what’s good for us. You think in a couple months she’s going to kill me in my bed and come wandering back here, and you’ll have another headache to explain to the council. Or you know what? Maybe let’s say you are being nice. Maybe you just want to spare me the realization that I’m so damn unlovable, so damn stuck here.”

 

Her last words got choked out in a sob and she leaned in on herself completely. “Sombra,” he said. He actually sounded worried now and she could not look at him. “Sombra, that’s not it at all.”

 

He moved the glass away from her and she wiped at her nose.

 

“I’m not saying you haven’t been an ass sometimes,” he said. “But I know you try very hard as well. You’ve had to in order to survive, sure. But I’ve noticed you trying for other people more and more. Especially Widow, but I noticed you’ve been kind to me, too.”

 

She closed her eyes. He set his bloodless hand on her back and she was reminded of Widow’s room temperature touch, and it made her slightly sick. “There aren’t many people who do that for me now,” he said. “It… matters to me. And so I do care about you.”

 

She raised her head from her hands and looked at him, and he gave her a small, sad smile.

 

“And that’s why I don’t want you to make this mistake. I wish you could have a nice, quiet retirement, Sombra, but that’s not happening. People like us, we could do nice things from now until the day we die. It’ll never make up for all the shit we’ve done. We’re not the good guys, Sombra. Us being happy isn’t the happy ending. So we just have to stick together. Do our best with the story we’re in.”

 

She sat up all the way, and his hand slid off her back. “I like the stick together,” she said. “But I don’t need to be in the story any more.”

 

He laughed and she had to stop herself from flinching. “Sombra. Try to think about this. You tore yourself apart and rebuilt yourself, so you could be a player. You really expect me to believe you’re going to drop out over a relationship?”

 

She stared at him, at the two red lights behind his eyes. She had always felt a certain kinship with him. He knew what it was like to mangle and warp one’s body in order to survive. She had always done well forming her views of people in base, desperate terms, and so she had not bothered to consider that Gabe might have had different reasons, or no reasons of his own. She had drastically overestimated how well she and Gabe understood one another, and he had too. That realization gave her an advantage in their standoff and set a dull weight in her chest.

 

“I am, though,” she said. “If you ever want to leave, you’ll know how to find me. But I’m leaving now.”

 

She searched his face and saw some of what she was looking for, some traces of surprise and hurt and anger. Then she saw him reaching down to his weapon.

 

She activated her translocator beacon. As he whipped around looking for her, she dipped her hand into the control panel. He made eye contact with her just as the metal door slammed shut.

 

She was faster than him, but he was nothing if not persistent. So she went invisible, ran away, and did not look back.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have one more plot-centric fic in the pipeline for this series, and then some ideas for other things– but let me know if there's anything in particular you want! I do have an idea for a Brightest Timeline Ending!Gabe fic.
> 
> I'm @tacticalgrandma on tumblr, if you want to talk to me there.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading, and any comments/kudos would mean the world to me <3


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